Madison Criterium – Tour of America’s Dairyland – Day 11

This was a great way to end up the 2011 Tour of America’s Dairyland. I put the course map first because it highlights the unique location for this criterium. We raced around the Wisconsin state capitol building in Madison. The course was a square with a downhill leading into Turn #2 and #3 and then an uphill leading into Turn #4 followed by a short flat finish.

I started about mid-pack and sank backwards on the first few laps so that by about the fifth lap I was somewhere in the back 1/3rd of the field. Eventually, I started feeling more confident about the race and started to move up. The best place to move up was immediately after turn #1 on the run-in to turn #2. This meant that you had to take turn #2 on the inside, but then you were in great position sheltered from a pretty strong cross-wind on the fast stretch from turn #2 to turn #3. The problem with this line, though, is that the inside of turn #3 wasn’t the best place to be if somebody decided to cut you off. This happened several times where I lost a lot of momentum and had to accelerate hard up the hill between turn #3 and turn #4.

Towards the middle of the race, I had worked my way far enough forward to attack when a $100 prime was announced. I got a gap after turn #1, but was chased down by about halfway up the hill before turn #4 by a Garneau Test team rider. I ended up crossing the line 3rd behind the Garneau rider and a Foundation CRC rider. Then I tagged onto the back of two more riders who had attacked from the field. Our five-man break lasted about a lap before Kenda brought us back. The move of the day went fairly early on with Dan Holloway (Kelly Benefits), Timmers (Garneau Test), and Sergei Tvetskov (Aerocat) braking away and gradually increasing their lead. Kenda chased hard, but the short hilly four-corner course did not lend itself well to a steady chase.

About 50 laps into the race (out of 70 laps), I attacked going up the hill into turn #4 hoping that a prime would be called on the next lap. As I attacked, somebody yelled “Watch out for the squirrel”. I was a little frustrated because I was thinking that they were calling me a squirrel even though I thought I was riding a very good, safe race. In a hilarious coincidence, though, there was actually a squirrel that was in the road at that exact spot at the time that I attacked. The squirrel was dodging back and forth trying not to get run over and eventually leaped over the barriers to escape. Kristine was right there and watched the whole thing – including the person yelling “watch out for the squirrel” so she can verify that they weren’t shouting about me!

After my lap solo, there were a bunch of attacks / chases. I ended up sliding pretty far back in the field, but with about 10 laps to go I decided to do everything I could to move back up to the front of the field. With a couple laps to go, a group of 3 had separated themselves from the field and were just a few seconds up the road. With one lap to go, I had worked all the way to the front of the field sitting second wheel behind Emile Abraham (Aerocat) who was setting a very fast pace on the last lap. He attacked going into Turn #3 at the bottom of the hill and I went with him. I stayed on his wheel until his teammate, Josh Carter, who had been just behind me attacked and Emile sat up. I swung out to the left of Emile and gave it everything I had getting passed by only Chad Hartley (Kenda) between Turn #4 and the finish to place 9th.